Ice makers are known for use in refrigerator/freezers, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,248, which include a mold in which water is frozen to form cube or other shaped ice bodies and a rotatable ice ejector having a plurality of radial ice ejector arms. A drive module is provided for rotating a shaft of the ejector, which includes a drive motor that drives the periphery of a gear wheel having an axial sleeve that receives and drives a vertical cam shaft, the rotation of which in turn rotates the ejector during an ejection cycle, as well as control rotation of an ice level sensing arm.
During the ejection cycle, ice bodies sometimes can become lodged between the ejector arms and the strippers so as to impede or interrupt rotation of the ejector. In an effort to overcome such obstructions, drive motors with increased torque have been employed for the ice ejector. Because the drive train between the drive motor and the ejector shaft include plastic parts, including the gear wheel and the vertical cam shaft, when rotation of the ice ejector shaft is interrupted by a jammed ice body, the larger powered drive motor can cause such high torque between the gear wheel and vertical cam shaft that fracture or breakage of the plastic drive components can result.
A further problem with such ice makers concerns the water fill cycle of the ice maker. To control operation of the water refill cycle, an electrical water fill contact of the control module will periodically contact a relatively moveable circumferential track of a face cam circuit mounted on the gear wheel. In order to selectively adjust the fill cycle time (and hence the water depth in the ice maker mold) the contact is radially positionable by means of an adjustment screw and the start up location is determined by an angled groove in the rotatable circuit track.
To establish the proper fill level, the adjustment screw for the water fill contact must be precisely set. This typically requires a multiplicity of assembly inspections and a water fill check procedure. Furthermore, after the contact position has been properly determined, shipping and handling of the ice maker, as well as subsequent installation in a refrigerator/freezer, can alter the radial position of the contact and hence cause unwanted changes in the water refill time. Moreover, since the contact adjustment screw can protrude from the device, it can impede packaging and be subject to breakage or damage during handling of the ice maker. Thus, while heretofore the adjustable positioning of the water refill contact relative to the gear contact track was intended to enable a precise fill level in the mold, it has resulted in uncertainty and water fill cycle problems in the field.